


This House is Falling Apart

by uro_boros



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-18
Updated: 2015-06-18
Packaged: 2018-04-04 23:09:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4156470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uro_boros/pseuds/uro_boros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He studied his hands and found nothing there. He looked up at Levi’s back, at the shaggy ends of his hair, and found a response already nestled in the back of his mouth. “Because I want to know what you think.”</p><p>Levi stilled, hand wrapped around the broken bulb. “I think,” he finally sighed, “that sometimes people just need breaks.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	This House is Falling Apart

The janitor’s name was Levi. Erwin made it a point to be polite – to avoid the uncomfortable undercurrent with service staff, amplified in places like Erwin’s office, rich even for his taste.

He worked late, which is how he met Levi in the first place. In his other offices, the janitorial staff came in around six, as the stragglers and procrastinators were finishing off their work for the day.

Levi came in at ten, as constant as the clock on the west wall.

He was small, even slight, pale but with an undertone that suggested something else than German. He didn’t like to speak and only did so to ask Erwin to move his feet so he could vacuum. His voice was clipped and accented.

Erwin thought about striking up more conversations – of pulling his wallet out to show Levi the pictures of his son that he kept there, the way he would with anyone else in the office.

Finally, he did it one night, as Levi wiped at the windows, and Erwin tugged his leather laptop bag awkwardly against his shoulder. The subway was closing soon, but he lingered, thinking up conversations and the paths they could take.

They took precisely none of the ones he planned.

“If you have a kid,” Levi murmured, “why are you here at eleven at night?”

The back of his neck flushed. He didn’t have an answer that felt satisfactory, and the weight of Levi’s gaze was cool and assessing. The babysitter liked the long hours, Erwin thought of joking, because it meant extra money for her the next time she went out with friends. 

Levi’s expression caught the lie before it came out. He went back to wiping the windows, fastidious and calm, as Erwin hurried out the office feeling much smaller than their small janitor.

“Sometimes,” Erwin said the next night that he stayed late to finish off a portfolio of work, “he looks very much like my wife. Sometimes it’s too much to stay. Does that make me a bad father?”

Levi was up on a ladder, replacing a light that had flickered off around four in the afternoon. “Why do you care what I think? Get an overpriced therapist and cry to him.” The ladder wobbled. Erwin stood up and steadied it.

He studied his hands and found nothing there. He looked up at Levi’s back, at the shaggy ends of his hair, and found a response already nestled in the back of his mouth. “Because I want to know what you think.”

Levi stilled, hand wrapped around the broken bulb. “I think,” he finally sighed, “that sometimes people just need breaks.” 

Erwin offered him a hand as he came down. Levi didn’t take it.

They left the building together and parted ways at the entrance. Erwin went home to his son and sent the babysitter off and stared at a lacquered family portrait on his mantle.

He wondered what Levi went home to.

–

He asked. Levi stared at him, coaxed from his job for once to sit across Erwin’s desk and drink tea.

“It’s not really any of your business,” Levi said bluntly. 

Erwin curled away from him, and Levi made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat, rolling his eyes. “It’s not,” he insisted, like he had to. Erwin nodded.

He considered lines crossed and how to uncross them. Drank deeply from his mug when he realized he couldn’t. Looked anywhere but Levi’s fine-featured face.

Levi muttered something in a foreign language that Erwin couldn’t place. “I have an apartment,” he finally said, “it’s small and clean. I like when things are clean. That’s where I go.”

It was more than he was expecting – much more, and Levi seemed to know it, looking vaguely uncomfortable at his own forthrightness. Erwin thought of lines crossed again, and wondered how much was being given and what he could take.

“No one to go home to?” he pressed and gentled it with a slight smile and an addition, “I suppose that might be why you work so late.”

“I like being alone,” Levi shrugged.

The air in the room felt thick with something but Erwin placed it as humidity. The office didn’t have very good ventilation. 

“I’m sorry to disturb that then.”

Levi’s eyes settled on him, heavy as before. He finished his tea in one long drink and stood, raising an eyebrow. “I never said that you did.”

–

His workload lightened as the fiscal year came to an end and began all over again. Erwin stopped staying until ten or eleven.

The babysitter said she thought it was for the best. She said that Eren missed him, even though Eren wasn’t even eight months old and Erwin didn’t think that he did – he didn’t miss his mother, and that was for the best. Erwin thought, deprecatingly, that he wasn’t as great of a loss after her.

His new schedule meant that he stopped seeing Levi. He left post-it notes on his desk with his work email. His inbox remained empty, so he left his personal email, then his personal phone number.

They prompted nothing in return, so he sighed and left his desk as clean as he humanely could, even though it was always somehow cleaner after Levi had attended to it.

Levi had said he liked to be alone – and while he hadn’t said Erwin had disturbed him, he could have just have been being polite. Erwin wouldn’t force himself on Levi, just because he happened to be lonely.

And he was lonely, he realized now. The realization spurred his next actions: he got himself the fancy therapist that cost too much even though his insurance mitigated most of the financial damage. She was kind and sympathetic and she listened attentively as Erwin explained his life and his losses.

“I think,” she said, months into their sessions, her eyes crinkling kindly, “that sometimes people just need breaks.” She was referring to the anniversary of his wife’s death, and his reluctance to visit the grave even though he hadn’t been since the funeral.

The words caught him off-guard.

His mouth felt papery and dry. He felt unexpectedly brittle, and it had nothing to do with the topic at hand.

He stayed at the office the following night until ten and caught the brief, surprised widening of Levi’s eyes in response.

“They give you too much work again?” Levi asked, and his tone was just shy of rude.

Erwin nodded before he caught himself and then shook his head enough that it nearly hurt. “No, I’m here because of you. Because of me and you,” he clarified.

“Right,” said Levi flatly, “I’ll pretend I understood that.” But the words deflated him – he shrank, looking small and pale and insecure. He rubbed at the bone of his wrist. “You should be home with your kid. I didn’t mean to keep you around so late for so long.”

“I used to be better at this,” Erwin admitted, a little flustered. 

Levi watched him, slightly wary. “At what?”

“Would you like to be at home with me and my kid? My son,” he picked up the right word, and added hopefully: “His name is Eren.”

Levi stared at him blankly. He gestured at the cleaning supplies on the cart behind him. “I’m at work,” he said slowly.

“And the babysitter is watching Eren until 11:30. You usually finish before then. Would you like to come over?”

Levi assessed him critically before the corners of his mouth lifted faintly and smoothed themselves equally as fast away. “Okay,” he said, and then turned around to fuss at something on his cart that probably didn’t need to be fussed at. 

Erwin watched the expanse of his back and let himself settle a warm hand between Levi’s shoulder blades. “You could also take a break,” he suggested.

Levi snorted, turning on him and shoving a bottle of cleaner into his hands. “No,” he said bluntly, “but if you help, it can go faster.”

It didn’t, but the babysitter didn’t mind the extra money.


End file.
